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- I'm okay. My car is working again. It died for no reason at all - I think it was God trying to teach me a lesson, but I don't know what the lesson was supposed to be. Maybe I was supposed to meet someone, but the guy at the auto parts store who tested my battery didn't seem too interested. All in all, from the way it appears to me now, it was just God on a powertrip doing needless meanspirited things. We'll see, though, I guess. Maybe I would have gotten into a wreck if I'd been able to drive on Wednesday morning like I wanted, but that's so untestable. God has a thankless job, I suppose. I went for a long run today, and then I went to the store and spent $6.29 on candy and $.17 on Top Ramen (on sale!). I also bought other things. When can I go to bed? It's not even 7 yet. Here is a story I started on Friday at work: I enjoy the tea, this is no secret. One year all I wanted for Christmas was tea, and I received a roomful of boxes of tea, some of which I still haven't opened. If you get me tea that's not good, I won't drink it. I feel like talking about hippos or elephants now. One time I lived in India, of this I am sure. I spent a lot of time in the markets but wearied of that lifestyle after years of toil. Oh I loved it, I loved the smells, the colors, the excitement upon waking up in the dark early morning every day. I loved trade, I loved seeing the wares that came in - furniture, fine cloth, rugs, baskets, ornaments and trinkets and everything else - and imagining where they came from, envisioning them being unloaded from a ship that had sailed across vast blue oceans from distant lands, imagined the people who had made them, sitting on their porches in the sun in some small town somewhere, somewhere. But I was born in the wild, in an area that you cannot find anymore because it has disappeared. But when I was there it was lovely. My uncle owned a tea plantation and was very wealthy; my parents were very poor, but as my mother was my uncle's only kin, he was very kind to us. We had two elephants, a mother elephant and her daughter, and my father worked hard in the fields every day. My mother spent her time with household chores and with raising me, teaching me to become a good wife. My education was simple but enormous. My mother's family had lived in the hills for generation upon generation and had amassed a local knowledge the likes of which I have never seen elsewhere. Hollows, springs, holy sites, tiger traps - everything was my textbook. Although my uncle was kind he was also very lonely. When I was 12 he started coming to dinner more frequently, and he would sit and talk with my parents long after I had been sent off to bed. When I turned 13 I was allowed to stay up later to join in the discussions. When I turned 14 I knew what was in store for me so one spring morning I awoke very early and tiptoed out of our house. I knew where I was headed - I knew the countryside was no place for me. I walked south in the brightening morning (If I ever write more, it's going to be about some of my friends here, except not.)
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